Archive for March, 2017

back in february (which seems like a really long time ago). we predicted that michael flynn would rise again and come back to haunt the trump administration. should flynn have been fired for misleading vice president pence about his contacts with the russian embassador or should he have been sent out on the talk shows to apologize for making pence look like an idiot? either way, it wasn’t as if this topic was ever going away. now flynn has resurfaced, offering to testify before congress about contacts between russia and the trump transition team in return for immunity. this could quite possibly also include contact prior to the transition. there is a story out there from 2016 of donald trump junior meeting with russians in paris to discuss. we will look for the link.

in the 1980s, the reagan administration gave the world the iran-contra scandal and made a minor celebrity out of oliver north, who went on to having his own AM radio talk show and run for congress. in the 1970s the nixon administration gave the world g. gordy liddy–who also re-invented himself as a radio talk show god. the virtually scandal-free george h.w. bush administration only begat wolf blitzer, colin powell and “read my lips. no new taxes.” while the bill clinton adminstration gave us monica lewinsky and kenneth star. looks like trump has really taken his followers back in time to the period when the USA was “great” and riddled with potentially dangerous political scandals. yes we have conviently left out george w. bush and barack obama. but their problems were different.

johnny rotten launched his music career in the 1970s as lead singer of the UK-based band the sex pistols. rotten and syd vicious (r.i.p.) were a much needed relief to the dredful tunes that were on the airwaves back then such as boston (one of whom’s members finally died last week), tiny tim, journey, and the left-over 60s sh*t. but we only know this from historical records because thank god we weren’t forced to actually grow up listening to symphonic rock. rotten, one of the original provocateurs from the first wave of punk thinks trump isn’t as racist as he’s been made out to be and considers nigel farage a working class hero. on most levels, rotten gets it about right. populist politicians such as farage, trump and marine le pen are like the punks from the 70s and 80s saying loads of sh*t people would never say around their granny and in farage’s case with all the wrong accents. in le pen’s case, having attended the wrong schools. and trump’s case, having attended fordham university (which accepts 40% of its applicants) and then transferring to an ivy league school. but then one must always remember that barack obama might be the most famous person who ever attended occidental college.

on the day that us secretary of treasury, steven mnuchin (producer of the classic suicide squad film) said that robots replacing humans in jobs was about 100 years away, the guardian claims it is more like 15 years away. minus mnuchin’s recent trip to the g20 meeting in germany where he threw adam smith under the bus, we wonder when the last time it was that he left the united states. because the robots are here. robots bus tables in singapore and china. and in a lot of supermarkets in the UK self-checkout has been around for at least the last 10 years. mcdonalds started rolling out their automated ordering systems in holland more than 1 year ago. and the list goes on. so if by AI and robots he is thinking more like battlestar galatica, the retelling. mnuchin might be right. but on every other level he is completely wrong.

france’s emmanuel macron has more in common with donald trump than marine le pen. neither emmanuel macron nor donald trump had ever run for a political office before they decided to run for president. donald trump jr described the trump orange hurricane as a “movement” and last night in france’s first presidential debate, macron described his fake party en marche party as a movement as well. we are not against macron. we are quite intrigued to have found a representative of the populist middle. unlike donald trump, if macron wins the presidential election, it will have been his good looks and youthful optimism that propelled him into office.

we realize americans neither care about tradition nor decorum. but why was ivanka trump set next to the 2nd most powerful person in the world yesterday? is it a sign of how trump views women? or is it as silly as his letting ivanka make moon eyes at trudeau, canada’s prime minister. sorry ivanka, don, don jr and eric but after trump exits the white house the extended trump family will be persona non grata worldwide. funny that jared kushner did not introduce himself during the roundtable meeting with merkel and the ceos of siemens and bmw. but how do you say ‘my dad just got out of prison for fraud and i am only here due to nepotism. ‘

emmanuel macron, france’s leader of the en marche! party and former finance minister in the francois hollande governnent was in germany yesterday meeting with chancellor angela merkel. the center of influence in the EU has traditionally been the german-french axis. march 25th marks the 60th anniversary of the treaty of rome and the founding of a union that held a number of names until it was renamed the european union. the 6 founding members, which we must point out did not include the united kingdom, have in the end consistently managed to find diplomatic solutions to problems that 100 years ago would have led to war and the destruction of the benelux countries and a march towards russia.

this week, holland, a founding member withstood its own test. next month and in may, so will france. will the babyfaced macron–the former banker, leading a so-called movement which is most likely an idea crafted by francois hollande and his ex-socialist minister (macron) prevail?

here is one conspiracy theory: with an approval rating of 4% hollande realized he stood no chance in getting re-elected. we suspect macron is being used as a proxy for the socialist party. but on the other hand, it never made sense that a former banker was essentially the member of a 21st century communist party.

for non-dutch speakers scroll to the bottom for stats and charts on the nos.nl website–the site of the public service tv channel in the netherlands, for election results. 95% of the dutch electorate voted for the center. the careful dutch is the catchphrase used in the 20th century by an italian author to capture the essence of dutch culture. it looks like he was about right.